THE HANDS AT THE WINDOW.
The man who sold the red paste-boards at the ticket wagon always dressed better than the man who owned the circus. He ran largely to striped vests and wore shirts that were of the sassiest shade of pink. Like the Candy Butcher, he never wore his coat when he was working, but the vest and the trousers made him a swell enough picture. The rest of the outfit regarded him with the same awe that fills the spirit of a man earning twelve dollars a week who accidentally runs into J. Pierpont Morgan. To be sure, the Ticket Seller never had as much cash as the Wall Street man, but he made a bigger flash. He always carried a roll, and as his accounts never failed to balance and he stood good with the Boss, it was generally presumed that the gold boys he carried in his upper vest pocket were his own.
The gang that talked on the ring bank between the afternoon and the night show had great respect for this member of the outfit. He had a line of talk that sounded big, and that was always inspiring to the crowd. He knew just what the Big Show was taking in, and he liked to talk about it. He talked figures, and the ring bank crowd only knew it by the thousands of people that roosted on the blue boards when the bill was being run off under the main top. In the winter months, when the Big Show had gone to quarters, the Ticket Man managed a burlesque house in Chicago, and it was said that he wore so many diamonds on the pink bosom that it wasn’t necessary to turn on the lobby lights when the night audience was coming in. He was a loud boy, all right, but he backed the noise with coin. When the Ticket Man wasn’t talking about money, he let loose a bunch of racing talk that would have feazed the principal writer on a daily turf sheet. He used words that seldom got farther than the paddock, and he picked winners like a diamond expert getting out the real shines from a pile of glass.
And with both lines of talk he had ’em all faded when it came to the con. He had a line of explanations that would make any man think he threw down a two-spot when he knew that he walked up to the window with a double X.
“Lemme tell you fellows sumthin’” he said, as he came in after supper in the meal tent and sat down for a smoke. “You’se can always hear a lot of knockin’ for the boys what sells in the wagon. Now take it from me, don’t youse believe a word of it till youse gets the other side. You hear a lot of hollerin’ that ev’rybody is gettin’ done, and that the boys in the wagon is buyin’ gov’ment bonds and furnishing flats on the short change graft. But it ain’t so—not altogether. It was in the old days, when I started in the business, but it ain’t now. Graftin’ is dead, take it from me.”
“Yes,” said the Old Grafter, with a deep sigh, “you’re right, Bill, graftin’ is dead, an’ it was a sorry day for me when it died.”
“You’re right, Jim; half way right, but it won’t go these days. But what I’m tellin’ you is right; when you is sellin’ hard tickets to a long line that is rushin’ to get to the tent, youse can’t go out and have a personal interview with every man that runs away an’ leaves his change on the window. An’ say, whose goin’ to take chances givin’ it up when he does come back? Not me, not me; I see me little bank-roll in the Dime Savin’s lookin’ like a busted baloon on the end of the season. Say, don’t make no mistake, ev’ry hand at the window is a hand ag’in’ you. I know what I’m talkin’ about. There ain’t a man in the country who don’t think he’s doin’ a smart trick when he beats a circus man out of money. They’ll all do you when they can. Mark my word. I’ve been passing out hard tickets with this outfit for nine years an’ long before that with a fly-by-night, an’ I knows the game—ev’ry hand that comes up to that window will do you if it can. I’ve had too many Reubs hand me a two-dollar bill an’ say it was a tenner.”
“What do you do then?” asked the Concert Manager.